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Ohio State: Is Buckeyes defense even fixable before Michigan game?
By Jim Tomlin
Published:
The standings say that Ohio State is 10-1, which sounds like the Buckeyes are a machine.
Your eyes tell you that OSU is a machine which springs a new leak every week.
That, in a nutshell, is what the Buckeyes must address before facing archrival Michigan this Saturday.
Ohio State looked like an FCS defense at times in Saturday’s overtime win over Maryland. Jordan McFarland gained the second-most rushing yards even by an OSU opponent.
The freshman had 155 yards and two long touchdowns runs after his first three carries and finished with 298 yards and two TDs on just 21 carries, an average of 14.2 yards a carry. All from a freshman who wasn’t supposed to be a starter yet.
The fact that Ohio State won 52-51 when Maryland went for two points and failed after the Terrapins scored a touchdown in overtime — because of a missed throw, not because of any great play by an OSU defender — cannot mask the putrid effort by the Buckeyes defense.
And Saturday was not an isolated incident. Check out OSU’s rankings in some key defensive categories:
Total defense: Ninth B1G, 71st nationally, 399.4 yards allowed per game
Passing defense: 10th B1G, 81st nationally, 237.4 yards allowed per game
Rushing defense: Sixth B1G, 64th nationally, 162 yards allowed per game
Scoring defense: Seventh B1G, 52nd nationally, 24.6 points allowed per game
ESPN analyst Tom Luginbill asked Buckeyes coach Urban Meyer going into halftime about OSU’s defense. Meyer’s assessment? “Just awful.”
It got marginally better in the second half, perhaps because it could not have gotten any worse. Maryland gained 535 total yards, the fifth opponent this season to go for at least 450 against the Buckeyes this season. How many times did OSU surrender that much in 14 games last season? Twice. In 2016? Again, twice.
So is this situation even fixable? More to the point, is it fixable before the Michigan game?
I don’t think so. Not before next autumn.
Put simply, OSU takes poor angles, tackles poorly and is out of alignment far too often. That’s partly because of the players and partly on the coaching staff. Anybody who has watched Ohio State all season would be hard-pressed to come up with any facet of defense which the Buckeyes do better now than they did in September.
If it hadn’t been for monster games by quarterback Dwayne Haskins and running back J.K. Dobbins against the Terrapins, OSU would not even be in position to compete for the Big Ten East title against the Wolverines.
McFarland made it look too easy on several runs, almost always to the left. Maryland running back Javon Leake scored a touchdown, untouched, on a play through the same part of the line.
The Buckeyes have had two months to adjust to life without Nick Bosa. The defense line and secondary are both about as healthy as they have been for quite a while. The freshmen are all veterans now. There is simply no excuse for this defense to still be playing this way and to still be giving up so many huge plays against average Big Ten opponents.
Michigan does not have a world-beating offense but the Wolverines are consistent, gaining at least 376 total yards in every game since the season-opening loss to Notre Dame.
Ohio State is consistent on defense too. Just not in a good way.
Longtime newspaper veteran Jim Tomlin is a writer and editor for saturdaytradition.com and saturdaydownsouth.com.